1. Technical Field
An aspect of the present invention relates to a printing apparatus, more specifically, a printing apparatus having a plurality of supporting means to support a recording medium thereon in the printing apparatus.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, a printing apparatus having an inkjet head from which inks are ejected onto a recording medium has been known. Such a printing apparatus is generally provided with a platen to hold the recording medium in position in the printing apparatus, and a size of a printable area on a surface of the recording medium depends on a size of the platen itself. Meanwhile, a printing apparatus having a plurality of platens has been suggested (e.g., United States Patent Application Publication No. US 2005/0179708 A1.) In the printing apparatus disclosed in the publication, the plurality of platens are provided to hold a plurality of pieces of recording medium in order to print images on the recording media in shorter lead time. According to the publication, each piece of the recording media is supported by one of the platens arranged on a same plane (FIGS. 7B and 7C) so that the images can be continuously printed on the recording media by the same inkjet head.
In the above printing apparatus, although the lead time to print images on the plurality of pieces of recording medium may be shortened with the plurality of platens, a printable area in each recording medium is still fixed and limited to the size of the platens. When it is desired that an image larger than the size of the platen is printed on paper, for example, the image can be divided into a plurality of pieces, and each piece can be printed on a sheet of paper which is in a suitable size for one of the platens and patched into a piece thereafter. However, when it is desired that the image larger than the size of the platen to be printed on fabric, for example, alignment of each piece of the printed fabric has been difficult due to stretches, shrinks, and deformation of the fabric. Therefore, the divisional printing to achieve a larger printed image has been substantially inapplicable to fabric. Moreover, when the recording medium is a ready-sewn cloth such as a T-shirt, relocating the cloth in an intended printing position in the printing apparatus in order to achieve the larger printed image is difficult, because various parts of the cloth such as sleeves and seams may interfere with a printing unit (e.g., a print head) of the printing apparatus.